“Not until they put a Qualcomm chip in it,” Jacobs said in a September interview.

It could soon be time for Jacobs' first Apple phone. The company is widely rumored to be planning an iPhone Nano, a smaller touch-screen version of its popular phone. One industry analyst says it will run on Qualcomm chips.

The weeks leading up to the annual Macworld conference are typically filled with rumors of expected product announcements. This year, there has been much speculation in advance of next week's Macworld that Apple will announce a smaller version of the iPhone, dubbed the iPhone Nano by bloggers.

Two iPhone accessory manufacturers, Vaja and Xskn, briefly listed protective cases for the iPhone Nano on their Web sites. Both companies have removed those listings.

Further fueling the rumors, Friedman, Billings, Ramsey Group analyst Craig Berger said in a report Wednesday that industry sources told him there will be a smaller version of the iPhone in the second half of the year and it will “apparently” run on a Qualcomm chip.

Qualcomm declined to comment, but industry observers say there's no question that Qualcomm would love to add Apple to its list of customers.

“It would be a big deal for them,” said semiconductor industry analyst Will Strauss of Arizona-based Forward Concepts. “I've heard nothing credible at this point from Qualcomm or others. But there's no doubt that Qualcomm has been knocking on (Apple CEO) Steve Jobs' door for a long time.”

Strauss said that in the competitive phone chip business, Qualcomm recently added Taiwanese manufacturer HTC as a customer, a deal that led to a Qualcomm chip inside the first Google Android phone. But Qualcomm lost some of its business with key customer Samsung when the company recently said it would buy some chips from competitors Broadcom and Infineon.

Business with Apple, which currently buys iPhone chips exclusively from Infineon, could help Qualcomm maintain its status as the top wireless chip maker.

Strauss questioned the logic of a Nano version of the touch-screen phone, which would not be as good at Web browsing with a smaller screen.

“The trend seems to be toward bigger screens, not smaller,” he said.

Others say it's likely that Apple will follow a game plan that worked with the iPod music player: multiple products aimed at various market segments.

“With the iPod, Apple had a fragmented approach, with different devices, features and price points,” said Michael Gartenberg, vice president of mobile strategy for Jupitermedia. “It makes sense that they would do the same thing with the iPhone.”

Apple fans tend to circulate a lot of rumors. Some hit the target. Some miss. The iPhone was rumored for years before it materialized, Gartenberg said.

On the other hand, first word on the supposed Nano leaked from manufacturers of cases, which lends credence to this year's rumor, he said.

“I'm not going to try and predict what they'll announce next week or next month,” Gartenberg said. “I do think it (a lower-priced iPhone) would make a lot of sense in the current economic slowdown.”